


Not Even Superglue Could Fix This

by ThreePipePr0blem (7percent)



Series: Saving Captain Crieff [6]
Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Mental Breakdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-10
Updated: 2012-05-10
Packaged: 2017-11-05 02:57:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/401699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/7percent/pseuds/ThreePipePr0blem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Martin stops over at the Richardson household, he breaks. Douglas tries to hold all the pieces together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Even Superglue Could Fix This

**Author's Note:**

> un-beta'd. Also I've started to cross post these over on LiveJournal, if anyone is interested.

It wasn't unusual for Martin to be in the Richardson household. Not after Helena had left Douglas on his own. Neither were sure as to why Martin was there. Douglas had thought that Martin was there because he needed someone to be with him, as things seemed to be taking a turn for the worse. Martin had started to come over to the Richardson household more after Douglas had drunk for the first time in 8 years. 

Douglas had been hiding his emotions after Helena had left. He bottled them up, filling it until the top and then drowning himself in alcoholic drinks. It started with a G&T one night, mainly tonic water with the tiniest dribble of gin. By the end of the week he consumed a four pack of larger and had stocked up various whiskeys including this years Talisker. It took another week and a half for Martin to notice. The captain had noticed when MJN had flown out to Cairo and Carolyn had made Douglas and Martin share a room. The first officer had sat on his single bed which was just big enough for him, stared out of the window and started to shake. Even after the short period that Douglas had started to drink again he was getting withdrawal symptoms. There was nothing he wanted more than to sit down with a bottle of whiskey and drown out all this thoughts and problems. He understood what was happening. He was being self destructive. Self destruction was such a pretty little thing. He had often thought that the reason he understood why Martin hurt himself was because he also knew what it was like to try and kill the pain with something. He had no right to judge. Everyone has something that takes away the pain.

Martin had walked over to Douglas' bed and placed a hand on his first officer's knee. The trembling did not stop as Douglas looked into the ginger's pale eyes. 

“I'm sorry.” The sincerity in the first officer's voice made Martin's chest ache. It was then that Douglas confessed to his recent drinking and it was then when Martin had vowed for be there for the older man. Which is why Martin was currently in the Richardson household, snuggled up to one Mr. Douglas Richardson. 

*** 

They hadn't moved from the couch for nearly three hours. The pair of them had been watching various films from various starting points. It was one of those days where neither of them wanted to face the world. It was one of those days that thoughts would consume their minds, and they would have no motivation to do anything about it. They would just accept that the thoughts were their own and that one day, they might be lucky enough for them to leave.

Soon after the first ten minutes of their third film Martin started to squirm into Douglas, wrapping an arm cautiously around the man's middle. The older man looked down curiously at the Martin shaped growth that he had seemed to form and as Martin settled he laughed slightly at the situation.

“Yes?” The growing blush on Martin's face made Douglas smile slightly. 

“Never mind.” He mumbled. “It's not important.” At this the first officer frowned. Martin had never seemed like affectionate type. He would be the kind of person who would shut himself off and then deal with everything himself.

“When is cuddling up to someone's side not important?” Martin had shrugged at this. “I don't understand, I thought cuddles were always important.” As Douglas said this, he moved so that he could pull Martin into his lap. The film was soon forgotten, and arms found themselves around the frail body of the younger man. Martin moved his arms to wrap around his friend's neck and placed his head in the gap between his arms. He was trying to run away, but knew he could not do so due to the hold Douglas had on him. It was then that he heard the timid voice that Martin so often used when he felt down.

“You don't really want to hug me. You're just hugging me because you think it will make me feel better.” Douglas frowned slightly.

“That is a perfectly good reason for hug.” he placed his chin on top of soft, bouncy ginger curls in an attempt at comfort. 

“It doesn't work unless the other person wants to give the hug..” Tonight was one of the night's that Martin would spout of things that were troubling, and Douglas knew this. He was shocked at how he hadn't seen the signs earlier. A very quiet Martin Crieff is normally a very thought filled one. “You know that right?” 

“I'm not entirely sure I understand what you mean, and that's not something I say often.” Martin smiled slightly, this throat closing up, making soft, small sobs escape his mouth as he clung tighter to Douglas.

“If someone gave you a hug, and you were feeling crap, and you knew they didn't actually want to give you one, it's possible one of your thoughts could be: 'Oh god, they're doing this out of pity, they don't actually want to deal with you at all.' Oh God, I'm so pathetic.” As his voice broke Martin placed his head onto Douglas' chest and cried. Something he felt worse about for the fear that Douglas would agree with him, or even worse. Laugh. 

“You're implying I can't be bothered with you.” A hand found itself in Martin's hair. Slowly it rubbed circles in an attempt to calm the younger man down. “I am okay? I. Am.” This shocked Martin. 

“I-I-I'm not saying that you can't be bothered.” he replied defensively. “It's what my thoughts are saying. It's- Jo said that they're wrong. That everything I think can be challenged. That what I think is just other people's thoughts and not my own.” A small amount of time passed before he spoke again. “I don't know what to think half the time. I just find it so difficult.” 

“I'm here for you Martin.' Douglas whispered as he held onto the upset man tighter.

“You are?”

“Yes.” 

A silence followed. Martin snuggled into Douglas more while the latter attempted to turn his attention to film that was still playing on the television set. 

“Do you think she's right?”

“Do I think who's right about what?”

“My therapist.” It had been Douglas' idea to get Martin a therapist after the incident in Cremona. Douglas wasn't sure if she was helping Martin, but he knew these things took time, and people don't recover straight away. It's a long and hard process. “She-She said my thoughts were wrong. Do you think all my thoughts are wrong?”

“Not all of them, but some of them probably are. Not everyone is right about everything all of the time. It is possible to entertain a thought without believing it.” A soft hum of confusion escaped Martin. “You can think something without actually believing it. You don't have to believe everything you think, that's silly.” 

“When you have conflicting thoughts it's difficult to believe anything and so you only believe the bad things.” 

“Just think about it more and consider it might not be true. That is how you figure whether or not it's true or not.” Douglas honestly didn't know what to say to the captain. His troubles seemed worse than he originally thought and with each sentence that Martin uttered it made Douglas feel more and more guilty for not listening as much as he could of. He hated how he felt he couldn't help Martin, he hated how he felt like it was too late.

“The more I think about it, the more I believe the bad... and the more I get depressed. I can't keep doing that to myself Douglas.”

“Well don't stop thinking about it. I'm not going to say stop thinking, just think differently.” Douglas smiled slightly, he hoped that he was saying the right things to the younger man. He wanted nothing more than for him to recover.

“That's called challenging my thoughts.” Martin said sadly. He had been attempting to challenge his thoughts for a few months now, feeling more and more pathetic each time he did. Feeling that he was either incapable too, or that he was just pathetic or in thinking the things he did.

“Yes. Do that. If you don't like it don't keep going looking for more things to make it worse  
challenge it. I am not going to lecture you on critical thinking, but yeah.” Douglas let out a nervous laugh. His arms tightened over Martin's small body. Over the past few months Douglas had been taking Martin out on more meals in an attempt to help him gain weight, but it only resulted in the captain eating very little and moving most of it around his plate. 

It was a few minutes before Martin spoke up again.

“One day you won't have to put up with this...” Both of them knew what Martin was implying, neither wanted to voice it. Neither wanted to think of this embrace on Douglas' couch ending. “Hopefully I won't annoy you any more.”

“You hardly ever annoy me though.”

“I feel like I do.”

“Sorry about that.”

“No. No, it's not your fault. I feel like I annoy everyone. I mean, I feel bad, because you have to put up with all of this, when you don't have too, and I am trying, and I'm going to try and stay out of your way because you don't need my problems.” Martin broke into a sob. He couldn't contain his emotions any longer and broke into tears onto Douglas' chest.

“Oh Martin.” Douglas moved a hand into his friend's hair and gently forced the smaller man to look into his eyes. “You don't need these problems either.” Slowly he lowered his head and placed a soft, tender kiss to his captain's lips. He held the kiss for a few seconds, and slowly withdrew to see the shocked, almost hurt look in Martin's face.

“Why? You'll just leave like the rest of them. Why would you do something like that to trick me into thinking you care?” He wanted to cry. He could hear the little voice in the back of his head telling him that Douglas was playing a sick joke on him. That he didn't like him like that. He had three wives previously, why would a sky god like Douglas Richardson want to kiss Martin Crieff, attic dweller. 

“I couldn't leave you. It's not fair. Not with all the crap you put with.” Douglas placed another kiss to the captain's forehead. “Plus I rather think I've fallen for you.”

Martin smiled, and proceeded to make himself comfortable on Douglas. He glanced over to the clock on the wall, which told him it was far too late to be sat on a couch talking about everything to Douglas.

“I should really get going.”

“Stay.”

“Pardon?”

“Stay with me, for tonight?”

“I- Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was based loosely on a conversation that I friend and I had. It was an extremely hard part to write and I apologise it took a while to get out. Stay Strong x


End file.
